The litter had been dragged over by the hearth, and a group of her people were peering down at its occupant, including Lala and her tutor.
“Now, now,” Grandmother said as she approached. “Give us some space to see what we’ve got.”
The group parted and let her in. The heat of the fire was a relief, though she did not think her toes would thaw out completely until summer. She gazed down at the man, and if anything, his face looked more ghastly than it had by lantern light out in the woods. Swollen and bruised and cut, and who knew what his beard hid. What would they find when they removed the fur that covered him? She reached down and peeled his eyelids back. Brown eyes, with pupils unevenly dilated. Concussion, but not surprising.
“Who is he?” Lala asked.
“I do not know, child. The groundmites found him.”
“Groundmites . . .” Arvyn, the tutor, murmured. He stared down at the man in disbelief.
“Yes, we traded some things for him. Now all of you, back to work so Min and Varius can have a look at the fellow.”
Varius was a skilled mender, and Min very capable, as well. She left them to tend the man, whoever he was. If they needed help, they would call on her. If the man survived his wounds, whatever they were, they would learn his name and how he came into the clutches of Skarrl and his people. If he were no one of particular interest, she could always put him to work on the excavation. If he did not survive? She shrugged. He would die a mystery.
She headed back toward the chamber they had set up as a kitchen. The broken walls had been patched with timbers and tarps, but the hearth was fully repaired and kept the area warm. Sarat and a few others fussed around her, getting her seated by the fire with a cup of tea to warm her hands, and entertaining her with the day’s gossip of who had shirked their chores, which young man was stealing kisses from which young woman, what the children were up to. It was all very domestic and cozy, and she could almost forget she was in some abandoned keep in the wilderness preparing her people to battle the Sacoridians and their allies. She left most of the military strategy to Birch, now a general rather than a colonel, and he was spending the winter ensconced with his troops at one of their bases a day’s ride to the east. Soon, winter would fade and conflict would reignite.
As Grandmother relaxed, another woman entered the kitchen. She was a stocky person with a mop of curling hair. She was bundled in a cloak, her cheeks red as if she’d just been outside.
“Hello, Grandmother,” the woman said, ignoring Sarat who looked displeased to see her.
“Ah, Nyssa, dear,” Grandmother replied. “How goes your latest project?”
Nyssa dropped onto a bench. Her cloak fell open revealing trousers and a tunic flecked with blood. Not her own. “Forty strokes was too much for him,” she said with a shrug. “His heart stopped. He was old, anyway.”
Sarat frowned in disapproval from across the chamber. It was clear how she felt about Nyssa and her work, but to Grandmother’s mind, Nyssa took a disagreeable but necessary task and turned it into an artform. She clearly loved her work as much as it disgusted Sarat.
“He was no longer productive,” Nyssa added, “so no great loss. But I saw that we may have a replacement. Varius told me how you traded with the groundmites for that fellow. It’s an odd thing.”
“Yes, it is,” Grandmother replied. “If he survives, then perhaps he’ll be suitable for the labor. I should like to find out how he came to be in the hands of groundmites in the first place.”
A tight smile formed on Nyssa’s face. “If he does not tell you, then I will get the answers for you.”
SONG OF THE STARRY CROSSING
In the dream, he drew the bowstring taut and aimed down the shaft of the arrow. He’d found the doe standing in a meadow at the edge of a wood, flicking her tail as she grazed, the golden sunshine of spring falling softly on her russet-brown back. She was a beautiful creature with a delicate face and limbs, every movement mesmerizing in its grace, but he was a hunter, and finally, in a moment of stillness, she was in range. If he was successful, she would be his. He let fly the arrow.
It arced through the air, its shadow flickering over meadow grasses, the sun stroking the shaft as it flew. The doe looked up, gazed across the meadow at him and tensed as though to flee, but it was too late. The arrow struck.
The doe flung herself into the woods, and he pursued, running across the meadow into the shade of leaf and limb. Her trail was obvious—broken branches, hoofprints, smears of blood on vegetation. He followed her trail over peat and duff and came upon her in a clearing as she took faltering steps, the arrow jutting from her ribs, blood darkening her side.
Her legs gave out, and she went down onto her chest on a deep bed of velvet green moss. He approached carefully. Now on her side, she thrust her legs out weakly, still fighting, still trying to flee. He knelt down and placed his hand gently upon her head. Her breaths came in raspy gusts and she looked up at him, but her right eye was not the brown of a deer, but the silver gleam of a mirror.
He realized in horror his mistake. No! No! No!
The arrow had rammed through Karigan’s ribs just below her heart. He held her in his arms as she took her last breaths and her mirror eye dulled to pewter, a single tear gliding down her cheek.
“NO!” He thrashed, fought against hands that pressed him back. “No! No! No!” How could he kill her? How? Pain clamped his skull, a terrible headache, and with it he realized he had been dreaming. No, he would not have killed her. Just a dream, just a dream. Then he said it aloud, his words slurring: “Jussst a dream.”
“Must have been some nightmare,” someone muttered.
Zachary opened his eyes to slits and jerked in surprise at a blurry face nose-to-nose with him. The vision made him feel sick, so he closed his eyes.
“Not quite with us yet,” a man said.
“Give him a little time.”
Zachary realized he was warm, wrapped in blankets. A fire radiated heat against his cheek. He was among people, so he had made it out of the cave somehow, unless the cave, too, had been a dream.
“Bruises both old and recent,” one of the men was saying, “and healing ribs. Looks like he’s been in a bad fight or two, and like someone tried to strangle him for good measure.”
“Keep an eye on him then,” said a woman. The resonant quality of her voice, like well-worn wood that has known years, suggested an older person. “We don’t need him starting brawls here.”
Had Zachary the energy, he’d laugh at the notion of himself as a brawler.
“Another thing that’s odd,” the man said, “is his clothing.”
The blanket peeled away, and Zachary shivered with the inrush of cold air. After a moment, the blanket was dropped back over him.
“I have not seen that style since my grandfather’s time,” the woman said. “Once fine garb, but very old. This one must have a very curious story. Let me know when he is ready to talk.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
Grandmother. Zachary stilled. What were the chances? No, there were grandmothers everywhere. This could not be his enemy, the leader of Second Empire. He, of course, did not ask, but he squinted once again, fighting the nausea. A man stood nearby staring down at him. Tall with golden hair, he was familiar to Zachary. He blinked trying to clear the blurriness from his eyes, trying to get the man to resolve in his vision. In a moment of clarity, he jerked up and almost spoke Fiori’s name.
Aaron Fiori shook his head and drew his finger to his lips. Then said, “I am called Arvyn. Mender Varius thinks you should rest for now.” He then glanced about as though to make sure he was not being observed and mouthed, Danger.
Zachary closed his eyes for a moment, and when he looked again, Fiori was gone. The pain in his head reinforced that this was not an extension of his dream.
Fiori had given him a false name, let him know he was not
among friends. Perhaps he’d managed to fall into the clutches of Second Empire, after all. Even if it were not Second Empire, he knew enough not to reveal his true identity to strangers without good cause. Even the most well-meaning folk could be a danger, should they learn who he was. There was a reason he was guarded by Weapons. Unless any of these people had seen him in person, or his portrait in the castle, they would not recognize him. He was not pictured on the realm’s currency, nor were there statues of him. There was a wax mannequin of him in the Sacor City War Museum, but it was, to his mind, a poor likeness.
As for his bruised and swollen face? All the better for concealing his identity. And because there was always the possibility of him finding himself in such a situation, he and his spymasters had put protocols in place, stories, that would further obscure who he truly was.
He tried to relax. Perhaps this was a singular opportunity to deal a blow to Second Empire. In order for that to happen, he would have to play his part well.
As he drifted off, he wondered what had happened to Nari and Magged. Had they escaped the aureas slee? He remembered little past an icy hand gripping his throat, strangling him, and the cold. He remembered nothing of how he left the cave, or how he ended up here, wherever here was. It was not Nari, or Magged, or the aureas slee he dreamed about, however.
Her blood on his hands, the arrow jutting at an admonitory angle from her ribs. No, no, no . . . Her hair lay in a brown wave across his arm as he held her in the dappled sunshine of the wood.
He surfaced enough to realize that yes, her blood was on his hands, as was that of every individual who served him. Every drop of blood they shed in service to the realm bloodied his hands. But he loved her.
Cannot lose her. He had come close to losing her too many times. As his awareness dimmed, he thought she did not deserve all she suffered, and the gods take him if he be responsible for it.
• • •
The next time he came to, it was to the sound of music, a lullaby his nurse once sang for him, a gentle tune of stepping from star to star as if they were stepping stones in a stream. The song was called “The Starry Crossing.” The voice singing it was female and, to his ear, perfectly pitched and melodious. It belonged to a person of exceeding vocal talent. She was accompanied by a lute.
Come to sleep, my little one
Come to rest, my little one
Drift into the starry dream
Step across the night sky stream
Follow the crossing, little one
The starry crossing, little one
The hound, the hawk, the grayling dove
The horse, the fish, the ladle, too
All await beyond the dawn
All await to cradle you
Come to sleep, my little one
Come to rest, my little one
Step into the starry dream
Step across the night sky stream
Follow the crossing, little one
The starry crossing, little one
He of the great wings beckons you
Your spirit he has now unbound
For the Earth is but a mew
The heavens aloft you have found
Come to sleep, my little one
Come to rest, my little one
The music almost drew him back into sleep until it was interrupted by irritating voices.
“Teaching her that Sacoridian heathen rubbish again, Arvyn?” A woman, whose tone was mocking.
“It’s just a lullaby,” Fiori replied.
“Oh? What do you think the starry crossing means?”
Fiori mumbled something in response. Of course, he would know the stars represented the gods, and that traversing the heavens meant death, but he wasn’t supposed to be Fiori. He was playing the part of one called Arvyn.
“It is a perversion, all those gods,” the woman said, “and you shouldn’t be teaching Lala such trash. There is only one god.”
“Now, now, Nyssa,” came the voice Zachary recognized as Grandmother’s. “Arvyn does not know our ways, yet. I am sure we could teach him some Arcosian lullabies.”
“I would like that, Grandmother,” Fiori said. “Are they as dark as ‘The Starry Crossing’?”
“I should say so. It would seem that portraying dark themes in the guise of children’s songs and rhyme is universal.”
Zachary experimented with opening his eyes. His vision was still blurry but perhaps not quite as bad as before. High above the rafters was a ceiling made of new wood. Heavy stone walls rose up around him. Parts of the walls looked recently mortared, but the structure had the feel of great age about it. To his side was the large hearth that kept him comfortably warm. To the other side of it, a couple people sat on a crude bench to warm their hands. One, a bespectacled fellow of middling years, observed him looking around.
“You’re waking up again, eh?” The man stood and came to Zachary’s side. “I am Varius. I do some of the mending around here. How are you feeling?”
“Thirsty.” The word came out as a croak.
“That’s a good sign.” Varius turned and spoke to someone, and Zachary heard retreating footsteps.
An elderly woman stepped into view and also looked down at him. She wore a cloak wrapped around her like a blanket.
“So, our mysterious stranger has reawakened. I must say I am quite interested to hear your story, young man. You are lucky the groundmites preferred to trade you for livestock rather than eat you.”
“Thank you,” he replied in a hoarse whisper.
“Oh,” she said, “don’t be thanking me yet.”
She smiled as she looked down on him, and he might have thought her kindly but for the ominous quality of her words and the shrewd gleam in her eye.
“Do you have a name?” she asked.
“Perhaps we should wait till he has had a drink,” Varius said.
“Of course.”
“Here is Min now with some water.”
A woman handed Varius a cup and the mender knelt beside Zachary.
“Let me help you drink,” he said, “and take it slowly.”
Varius helped tilt Zachary’s head forward and pressed the cup to his lips. The movement hurt his head all the more, but he drank eagerly.
“Easy,” Varius reminded him.
When he finished, he lay back, wanting more water even while his stomach churned.
“Better?” Grandmother asked.
Zachary sensed Fiori and the others hovering nearby. A woman with curly hair gazed over Grandmother’s shoulder. He cleared his throat. “A little.” His voice was still hoarse. “Where am I? What happened?”
“For the first,” Grandmother replied, “you are in the Lone Forest. As for the second, that is what we would like to know.”
“The knock to his head may impair his memory,” Varius said.
“I know, Varius,” she replied, giving the mender a testy look. “You may recall I have some experience in mending, myself.”
Varius blushed and bowed his head. “I am sorry.”
Grandmother ignored him and said to Zachary, “Perhaps, young man, we can start simply. What is your name?”
PLAYING THE PART
Fiori hovered behind Grandmother, and though Zachary’s vision remained somewhat blurred, he could see the anxiety in his eyes.
“Dav,” Zachary replied barely above a whisper. He had no idea if Grandmother could detect honesty the way Laren could, but he thought it best to keep an element of truth to what he told her. He closed his eyes, once again feeling the pull of sleep.
“Dav? Is that your first name, or your last?”
“Dav Hill,” he murmured as he sank into darkness.
“At least we’ve got a name,” he heard Grandmother say as if from far away.
“We’d best let him rest a while longer,�
� Varius said, “so he can answer more questions later.”
Zachary did not hear Grandmother’s reply. He heard instead “The Starry Crossing” as though it was being hummed to him by his nurse, at once soothing and disquieting. Some small part of his mind reflected the song must have been created because so many babes never made it beyond infancy, much less to adulthood, which led him to a vision of Estora humming the tune to their children in their cradles. They were lifeless.
He writhed in his blankets and groaned, the pain in his head agony. He was dimly aware of Varius putting a cup to his lips.
“Easy, Dav,” the mender said. “This draught will help the pain.”
Zachary gulped convulsively of the herbal concoction. He then relaxed, and headed once more toward slumber, the words of the lullaby once again coming to him. Come to sleep, my little one. Come to rest . . .
• • •
Zachary next awoke with the headache subdued. His vision was clearer, and the light in the chamber was different. A hint of daylight crept in from somewhere, though on the whole, the dark and shadows claimed the chamber.
Grandmother, he recalled, had said he was in the Lone Forest, which was not surprising because the last intelligence he’d received was that a group of Second Empire was spending the winter in the Lone Forest. He knew there were ruins there, a keep from the time of the First Age, at the very least, and this must be it. From the little he could see, Second Empire had done an admirable job of making it habitable.
It was quiet but for the pop of the fire. People must be out working on whatever chores were required, but he was under no illusion that he was not watched. He took time to assess his condition. Everything hurt, but nothing seemed broken or torn that he could detect. He touched his face and winced. Still swollen and tender. His stomach did not feel poorly, a major improvement. In fact, he was hungry.
Someone’s shadow drifted over him, and he looked up to find a woman staring down at him. He dimly remembered her from last night.
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